Saturday, April 28, 2012

A 'Break' For The Scammers

I wasn't 'tagged' by Sandee of Comedy Plus, but I accepted her generic 'invite' to respond to a questionnaire of sorts.

Let's call it a break for the scammers for one post.

1.How long have you been blogging?
Since June of 2005.  678 posts worth so far, less some earlier ones that I culled because they linked back to my old website, which I deactivated in March '07.

2. Are you a procrastinator or do you take care of things right away?
Yes.

3. If you have siblings, are you close?
Yes, no and yes:  yes I have siblings.  We don't communicate daily, but we're there for one another.

4. What's the best thing about your job? The worst?
It allows me to work behind the scenes in a support role.  The worst thing is the stress level when it gets hectic, as it frequently does.

5. If you had $1,000 to spend on anything you wanted, what would you buy?
Since I don't have a thousand dollars, it's moot as to what it'd get spent on.

6. How long has it been since you visited your hometown?
Summer of '91, I think.

7. Have you decorated for Easter/Spring? please share pictures.
Horsefeathers...I haven't 'decorated' for any occasion or holiday since I've lived in my current digs, besides hanging three colored Christmas balls from the clock approaching Christmas.

8. Do you sleep with a fan on?
No...the cheering, calls for beer and a wave, and catcalls keep me awake.

9. The beach or the mountains?
One day I may split the difference and return to rural Iowa.

10. If you had to choose only one which would you pick: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or blogging?
I'd blog ahead of the rest.  What in the horsefeathers is Pinterest?  A sister peak in Tibet to Everest?

11. When shopping, do you use coupons or shop around for the best deal?
I hate shopping.  I go in, get what I need, and get out.  And don't coupons go best on salad?

If you learned something new here, great.  If not, great.  Now, back to abusing online email scammers ;-)

Labels:

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Only Online...



Even these two owls never figured that they'd figure into this post.

Neither did the originating scammer.

His intention was to sucker me into an online loan. His rather skimpy email was short and to the dishonest point:

Do you need a loan?. If yes reply us for more details. 1. Full Name: 2.Sex: 3.Age: 4.Phone: 5.Country: 6.Loan Amount needed: 7.Duration Period: 8.Monthly Income: 9.Occupation

Being the kind that I am -- y'all know what kind that is -- I couldn't just rewrite and send it, without coming up with an angle. And I found my angle, in a not much longer rewrite:

From: InFidelity Spouse Loan Service Pvt <web.office.5.6.9.9@att.net>
To:
Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2012 10:09 AM
Subject: Spousaloscopy

Single? Tired of it? Married? Boring, disinterested spouse? Do you need a spouse loan?.If yes reply us for more details. We arrange loans of spouses. All kinds of spouses. F**k, you want to see what it's like to be married to a manatee? A tree sloth? A wild boar? A badger...wait...if your wife's had PMS, you already know that one.

Any way, send us the following information for more on spouse loans:
1.Full Name:
2. If Married more than a year, Last Time You Had ANY Kind Of Sex:
3.Age:
4.Phone:
5.Country:
6. Type of Loan:
-Human Spouse
-Primate
-Marsupial
-Aquatic Mammal
-Non-Aquatic Mammal
-Bovine
-Something Really F**king Exotic
7.Duration Period:
8.Monthly Income:
9.Occupation:

You contact us with your wants and needs, and we'll arrange the loan for your bone, or the weenie for your roast.

I didn't really expect a reply here, but I got one. One that seemed as confused as he/she/it seemed annoyed. One from a person claiming to be Andreas Davillas (a.davillas99@gmail.com):

First all, your email service provides you free email services you do not pay for email account. and you are not sure of what you want by the subject of your message. you must think that you is funny. who send you this email is a man of his own. do not speak evil of anyone you ***hole. if you receive a business proposal you do not like, simply delete and move ahead. Wtf is wong with you? By the way the computer you using is under control by the producer. You are damed. you would be wise to say offline.

I wasn't gonna reply to this. And if you believed that:

I'll take your email point by point. Yes, you're right. Yes, you're not. Yes, you're right. Who knows who sent this message originally; it might have been an alien from Uranus. You have funny way of 'speak no evil'. And I do all the time. Nothing the f**k is wrong with me. What the f**k is 'wong' with you? And I know who control this computer...my pet rock. I am man, not dame. Maybe I would be wise to say offline..."offline". There, I say it. You're right...I do feel wise.

I didn't get a reply, so I guess I answered whatever questions he/she/it had posed h'yar.

Meantime, whaddaya think? Think a spousal loan service that crosses speciological lines has a future?

Me neither.

Labels: ,

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Chat Widda...?



I think my pet rock, Seymour, is bein' bad on the sly.

"Am NOT!!!"

Everytime I log in to the email address that Seymour's FB page requires, I notice that 'he' is getting a load of Yahoo Chat requests.

"Am N...I am??"

Yep. And from the sounds of the names, I am guessing that somehow, Seymour's 'Yahoo profile', is being set up to be defiled.

Now, being 'responsible' for Seymour as I sorta am, I tend to take those invites with not a grain of salt, but a dump truck load of it, and I 'block' them.

"Phfffffttt!"

All except for one....identified as 'freidamgishimomura'. That one I 'accepted' on Seymour's behalf.

"And??? What'd she say???"

Until the other night, not a thing. But on one fateful night, 'freida' was online when I went in to check for any scam email opportunities that occasionally land in Seymour's inbox. And -- as I suspected -- there was less to 'freida' than I had already figured.

"Is NOT!!"

Okay, Seymour...here is an exact transcript of my 'chat' with 'freidamgishimomura', in its entirety ('her' comments in bold, mine in italics):

Just got here!you there?

i am hear.

"How come you typed so stupid-looking?"

As you'll see, Seymour, 'she' wasn't in this for intellectual discussion:

Hey sweety, how r ya. I'm just bored and found your name thru the yahoo member directory, do u wanna chat?

sure im chat wif u now, rn't i?

Yay! was starting to think no one wanted to chat with me..so watcha ya up to cutie?

"She called ME cutie??"

Easy, Seymour...read on:

i werkin on a collage theesus papur. it hard werk. U?

Im just hangin out..i have the place to myself, my roommate left on vacation for the week so I get to play online in my thong..LOL

awesum..what iz ur favorit thong? i like rock n roll stuff.

"Tell me you DIDN'T write that as me, please!"

Read on, Seymour:

So what you wearin, sexy?

me? i where a moooo!bar serf shorts and a tank top wif a piktur on it

I know we just met but im really turned on right now. Its just a little naughty fun on my web cam...you UP for it, sexy???

"Uh oh..."

Now you're catching on, Seymour. Read on:

i dont not half a web cam

k my cam is wired thru a chat network to keep the yahoo kids away from me so dont worry if you dont have a cam or yours dont work ok? u can just watch mine.

ok..watch chanel u on?

Ok you need to go to http://www.facebook-live.com/ if you cant click the link type it in or copy/paste it to ur browser let me know when u get it.

*after a moment*

i czechd my tv chanels an cant not find u. where r u?

silly..its free thru my profile invitation but hurry it expires in 10 mins...so click on it, k?

ok i go fill

its free, credit card, debit card or atm verifies your age *TOING -- the catch* they dont charge anything on it I had to do the same thing babe..cant show tits and pussy to minors...you know?

*after a few minutes to make it plausible that I filled out something*

ok...i filld it in the informations. what i do now?

when we get in there you better take us private so I can show you some things. Are u coming yet?

i be there fast as my connect speeds let me. where iz u?

I'm from southern Miami near downtown area. and you?

i frum iowa.

okay you in yet babe? im the one in the main video...you better gimme some "gold" as a flirt


(which, I gather, is some kind of access to whatever credit/debit card I was supposed to have used to sign up..now, how long can I make her think I did, and "am in"?)

wooooow...iz that u?

like what you see babe? ask me to do anything.

my goodess...i haved not seed an ass that big since i last milked the cows.

And that ended 'her' part of the conversation. I, of course, carried on a one-sided conversation for several minutes while 'her' chat icon was still indicating that 'she' was still online. Little casual conversational snippits like:

does OSHA make u wear a back up alarm with an ass that big?

did u do that video about manatees gone wild? i liked that video.

can u fit a Yugo in there front ways or sideways?

After that last one, 'her' chat icon changed and I got a message that 'freidamgishimomura' was offline.

"You're bad, Skunk".

Yawp...and I am revoking your Yahoo privileges, Seymour.

"PHFFFFFTTT!"

Labels: , ,

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Loans and Politics Make Weird Edits



Enough to make a monkey blush.

My latest received email offer to lend me money online, was only different in one respect from most of the recent offers to give me the business: it started out badly-writ, and rather stayed that way throughout.

Read it yourself, without any fixin' on my part:

This is Finance Candace, reputation, legal loan firm. we private loan money to individuals and companies who needs financial assistant. we give loan at 3% interest rate. We are use this medium to inform you that I assist beneficiary reliable as we will be happy to give you aloan.

Contact us by e-mail below for further details.

Contact Name: Aaron Smith


You are required to apply with the following important details.


Full Name .....

Contact Email :.......

Country :.......

Phone number :.......

We look forward to allow us to be of service to you.

Sincerely,Dr Aaron Smith

Candace Finance

*TOING*

Okay, I just hadda 'monkey' with it a bit. And since the season of politics is in full farce, I added some frills and dressin' appropriate to the season:

From: Candace Finance <info@candanceloan.org>

To:

Sent: Monday, April 9, 2012 8:35 AM

Subject: We Are Dodos We Hope You Are Too

This is Finance Candace, reputation, legal loan firm.
We start all of our emails out like that: stupid, ill-written, and full of s**t. And we go downhill from here.
We loan primate genitals to individuals and companies who are in desperate need of therapy and/or being sodomized by a deranged ostrich. From the applications we get, we f**king laugh a helluva lot, too.
We give these primate genitilia loans at 39.5% interest rate compounded daily. F**kin' A right we do. We want our f**king money up front, before the dumber among you figure out what the f**k is going on here.
We are using this medium to attempt to f**k you over. It works well enough, thanks to liberal dumbed down education in the West.
With that, I wish to write the following abject nonsense: we will be happy to give you a primate genitilia loan for any and all occasions. We'll even throw in banana scented lubricant, so the genitilia don't get to feeling too out of place, regardless of what a pervert like you is doing with it. Which, of course, is none of our business, once we have your application fee in our hot little crooked hands.

Contact us by e-mail below for further details.

Contact Name: Aaron "I Sodomize Sheep" Smith


You are required to apply with the following important details.

Full Name .....

Contact Email :.......

Country :.......
Email :.......

Phone number :.......
Kind Of Genitilia Desired :.......
Length of Loan Of Same :.......
Loan/Purchase Option? :.......
Last Time You Were Sodomized By An Ostrich :.....

PLEASE NOTE: You must be of a liberal philosophy, politically and educationally, for this to work. We get most of our satisfied customers from PETA, the ACLU, NOW, various teachers unions, and are enjoying a surge of Obama2012 Campaign members applying. We look forward to allow us to be of service to you.

Sincerely,

Dr Aaron "I Sodomize Goats, Too" Smith

Cantdance Finance

Feeling especially generous, I sent a copy of this to every email scammer currently in my address book, whilst generously copying each 'resend' to the recommended address of Candace Finance.

You don't suppose I'll be in line for some kind of referral fee, do you?

Me, neither.

Labels: ,

Monday, April 16, 2012

On Such Decisions Can History Pivot



*run a year early, and now on the 7oth anniversary, worthy of being remembered once more*

70 years ago, 80 men and sixteen airplanes changed the course of history and human events.

Six months prior, Pearl Harbor had been savaged. The Imperial Japanese Navy, Army and Air Force, reigned supreme across the Pacific immediately thereafter.

A desire to make some symbolic gesture of defiance -- for at this stage, symbolic is all it could be -- gave birth to a plan. A plan never before tried. A plan that was beyond a long shot. A plan that, in and of itself, could not hope to level the playing field immediately after Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines.

But it was meant to be a message, to both foe and friend alike. It was a symbolic plan. A daring plan. And one an American president believed would shed a ray of hopeful light on a nation that needed such a light at a dark time in its history.

80 men -- volunteers all -- and sixteen airplanes. They were the plan. They were prepared to risk all, without at the time they volunteered, knowing what they were going to be asked to do. But it didn't matter: it was war. And they, and more, answered the call.

The cream of the surviving US Pacific Fleet was committed and tasked thus: bring those 80 men and sixteen aircraft within range of the Empire of Japan. The men and planes would do the rest.

On April 18, 1942, those 80 men and sixteen planes set forth from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. Due to encountering an unsuspected 'picket' line of Japanese trawlers, the planes were launched earlier and further out than planned on. But launch they did.

Fifteen of the sixteen planes delivered their bomb loads on Tokyo and other nearby Japanese cities. One plane and crew was interned in Russia; the other fifteen planes crashed in or along the coast of China. Several men died; eight were captured by the Japanese. Four of those eight would die (three by execution, one by maltreatment). The rest made it back home, to fight another day.

Their commander -- Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle -- considered the mission a failure in the immediate aftermath, having lost all sixteen planes. His commanders and his president did not; he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

But more than that: this symbolic, pin-prick of a bombing mission, a mission that could hurt the mighty Japanese Empire not a material whit, changed the whole course of the Pacific War. It changed the course of the war, because this materially insignificant raid caused the Japanese to change their long-term strategy.

It caused them to overreach.

An overreach that resulted in the climatic Battle of Midway, less than two months hence, and signaled the beginning of the end for Imperial Japanese dreams of dominance of the Pacific.

70 years ago, 80 men and sixteen planes changed the course of history and human events.


A dwindling few of them remain with us. Remember them.

Labels: ,

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Not Always Ready



Sometimes, we're just not ready.

Things happen. We're not ready. Events happen. We're not ready.

Questions happen. We're not ready.

A few years back, I was present for the following: a young couple from Texas were checking out of the hotel attached to the casino I worked for. In the nicely decorated lobby over the fireplace, was a head mounting of a large animal. While the Mr. was attending to check out, the Mrs. was admiring the mounting. And then, in the presence of a half-dozen stupdefied listeners, she stated the following:

"That is the biggest elk mount I've ever seen!"

The Mr. heard this in abject horror, and hurried the check-out process along, while the rest of us witnesses did our best not to burst into laughter until after the young couple from Texas -- here in Colorado to elk hunt -- had left earshot.

The mount was a buffalo head.

On that occasion, I wasn't ready. To compound things, I tried to be mannerly, and barely managed to withhold my laughter until the couple was out of 'range'. But that 'quick wit and retort' that I was sometimes knowd for, wasn't ready when the 'moment' called for it.

You know the moment, I'm sure: someone asks a particularly astonishingly silly question, and you're so caught unprepared, the great comedic response opportunity is passed before you can impress with your stand up, comedic-improv timing. This happened to a small town cop I know, when a tourist pointedly asked him "at what altitude do deer change into elk?".

His post-incident answer -- "Trinidad" -- would have been priceless (to those of us who knew then that Trinidad was home to a human sex-change clinic), had he been ready with it at that moment. Alas, he wasn't...he admits being left in the "uhhh...what?" mode at the time.

Granted, I've had my opportunities at less than diplomatic moments: once, I was visiting the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo with my not-yet ex-fiancee. As we approached the turkey vulture display, my ex suddenly exclaimed "My God, that is an UGLY bird!".

One of the vultures -- apparently gifted with Robin Williams timing -- chose that second to take a rather loud, wet, gnarly dump from the top of the tree it was perched in.

Perhaps then, I should have experienced *lost opportunity-itis*. Instead, immediately following the vulture's "made for TV moment", I blurted out, "and apparently, the feeling is mutual!".

Relax...we were well on our way to her becoming my 'ex', before that ill-timed witticism.

I've had other moments where I was 'ready', if not always wisely-so. And more than a few where at the time, I was not.

The past weekend probably should have been one of the latter.

At work, I am not readily identifiable as an employee. That's due to the nature of what I do there. It's meant to be that way. Perhaps it'll work out for me in this case.

On my way to get coffee, I walked past a couple that were contemplating a row of video poker machines. Close enough to know I hadn't misheard the question, I heard one ask, "Is it possible to count cards on video poker?".

*Bite tongue and keep on walking* is what I should have done. But I didn't.

Slowing my pace for just a moment, I said to the both of them in rapid response, "uh, of course it is. And when you get to 1,000, you can start over".

The questioner gave me one of 'those looks' that suggested that she didn't find me funny, and said "I'm being serious". Her male attendant kept his barely straight-faced silence.

As I continued on my original quest, I responded back over my shoulder, "So was I".

Perhaps it was one of those times that I shouldn't have been ready, especially with the quick 'double raise' of my eyebrow.

Eh.

Labels: ,

Monday, April 9, 2012

The Cyber Dating Game



I am baaaaad. Vewy, VEWY baaaaaad.

Received this rather well-writted email from an alleged female of alleged eastern Euro descent, who wants me:

Hello,

My name is Olga Shevashevski,How are you doing?I am sorry to encroach into your privates in this manner, I find it pleasurable to offer you my friendship and possible more.I saw your profile today and became interested in you. Please I want to be a close with and a close confident friend with you, and i have all that it take to make you happy and contended with me. i would love to have communication with you.lets know each other better and i will sendyou my photoes and tell you more about my me that i is saved for a man like
you. I now live in Kiev but i am for a man of your world. I know that when
my photoes you see you will see what i am bring to you my love.
As soon as i get a mail from you i will send you my photoes to you so that
you can know me ok!!! i will like to be a very good with you, i am waiting
to have you in my box.thanks.Thank you.Olga

As I said...my is bad. Vewy, VEWY bad.

I've started receiving some what I'm taking as Russian bride scam emails again. Yeah, I know it's not necessarily a good thing to 'profile'. In the internet world, an email can come from anywhere. But when they come with the name "Olga Schevashevski", claim to be "from Kiev", and have an email ending in "dating.ru", I think I have at least a shred of evidence to base an opinion upon.

The email was nothing I hadn't seen before, nor was the well-written prose new to me. And even though I don't have any kind of "approved by me" profiles for dating on any site, and even though the email didn't come specifically addressed to me, or to any other of the several dozen 'undisclosed recipients', I decided to draft not a reply...but a suggested edit and rewrite.

Granted, "Olga" didn't send me a picture with the original email, though she promised to when I responded, I felt it righteous to fix that omission in her otherwise very convincing* email that seeks cyberlurve**, when I did a little suggestive "creative editing" of her missive, and returned it to her and two dozen of her a-sordid friends and colleagues. After all, doesn't a photo that fits the email tend to help the 'context'?

I think it do:

From: Olga Schevashevski mpoescu@dating.ru

To:

Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 4:55 PM

Subject: Hello
Hello,

My name is Olga Shevashevski, How are you doing? I am sorry to encroach into your privates in this manner, I find it pleasurable to offer you my very experienced sexual favors and my very broked in vaginal cavity for things you can imagine. I hopes you imagines with gusto and innovation, because I can fit one half of a Yugo in there.
Yes, I can.
It not that i no find love here. But i am tired of sex with yaks.

I saw your profile today and became interested in you. Please I want to be a nymphomaniacal f**k buddy and a close confident friend with your wallet, and i have all that it take to make you happy and contended with me for at least long enough i hopes to empty your wallet and bank accounts. i would love to have communication with you.lets know each other better and i send you my photoes and tell you more about my me that i is saved for a man like you. I send you one photoe to make you appetite for more.
I now live in Kiev but i am for a man who can appreciate my experience but not too soon. I know that when my photoes you see you will see what i am bring to you.
As soon as i get a mail from you i will send you more my photoes to you so that you can know me ok!!! i will like to be a very good with you, i am waiting to have you in my box. It need some lubricating before it fall out to my knees again.

I hate when that happen.

thanks

Olga

I haven't heard back from "Olga", but I wonder if she's gotten any hits from her two dozen friends and colleagues? Perhaps I have brought together to lost, wandering souls seeking love in cyberscamspace?

*Snort*

* uh huh...

** of any respondent's bank account

Labels: , ,

Friday, April 6, 2012

A Lotto Like Kind Of None Other


Maybe it was the smoke from nearby wild fires. Or just my warped mind in the early hours of an off night, reading email scams.

But a rather bland email, announcing that I'd won 1 million Great British Pound sterlings, and requesting I respond with personal informations to "stake my clam", kinda left me a bit nonplussed.

For about one one-hundreth of a second.

A simple email begat a not-so-simple rewritten response to the originator, and 24 of his peers and colleagues:

From: C. ZANBERGEN elsenkees@home.nl
To:
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 8:18 PM
Subject: WINTER

It was the best of emails, it was the worst of emails. Thence in harpooth of thine own undivine pursuits of apogee and azimuth, Sir Cumference was ordained a knight of the Third Holy Monty Python Pituitary Glandular Society, and consecrated in cherry Jello with bacon bits and haggis, because they ran out of oyster dorks. Oyster dorks doth not a sodomy make, without extensions and additional implements of the dubious antecedence, but I digresseth.

Did you know that 4 out of 5 dentists do not give a sh** about what 4 out of 5 proctologists suggest when it comes to oral hygiene? Do you care that 4 out of 5 recipients of this response don't have one f**king clue what a proctologist is?

A meteor, traversing at a physics regulated speed of 17,500 mph -- monitored by cosmic forces with unusual appearance and strange bodily emissions -- will promote tooth decay in platypus on impact. Studies at the Outback Steak House tend to obfuscate the results, since platypus don't frequent this venue for detailed examination and menu inclusion.

Your Email Id has won a colon cleansing by a moray eel in the UK Unspeakable Acts LOTTERY for March 2012. Please to send your following informations soonest for the mostest fastest respond from our operators who are standing by, swatting flies and being eaten by army ants, in our fly-infested Nigerian internet cafe near a wildebeest run outside of Lagos:

1. Name 2. Address 3. Nationality 4. Age 5. Occupation 6. Phone/Fax 7. Last Time You Had Sex With A Lemur or Sock Puppet Resembling Something Close 8. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? 9. If a constipated mathematician could work it out with a pencil, what would sequentially follow with beings from the planet Uranus? And lastly, 10.
Ask not what you can do for your country; ask how many government programs you can rip off, and please list them for us of Occupy Outhouses And Nothing Else Useful.

Statistically speaking, Saul Alinsky sodomized sheep.

This has been a peculiar email, yes?


I reckon the recipients found it to be so. As yet, I haven't heard from any of them that they got anything from it. Other than a dead and frying-in-hell Saul Alinsky sodomizesing sheep. And at that, they may try to contact him for advice.

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Not the 'Mystery' He Had In Mind



Yup. Got me another one of those Mystery Shopper job offers online.


Of course, I know it was directly targeted to me because it came with the typical 'undisclosed recipients' flourish in the "To" heading.


It was typical in every respect. Copied almost word for word from the last several of these I've received.


I tried to play the last two, but perhaps my reputation in Scamland is getting around; I got no response to my applications to be given the business.


So, with this particular opportunity, I decided to revamp the 'Mystery Shopper' into something a bit more of a mystery. At least for the scam originator.


And of course, I shared it with a couple dozen of his peers and colleagues.


In view of the recent flaps about gender, I decided that I couldn't go wrong by offending both males and females in this creative rewrite. It worked, at least in part, with the scammer, as you'll see shortly.


But first, what went back to the scammer and his odious minions:


From: Mystery Vagenis ® <gary@mystery-shopper.com>

To: 'Undisclosed Reptiles'

Sent: Tuesday, March 6, 2012 3:12 AM

Subject: We have a mystery
Dear Sir/Ma,

gary.tom@aol.com or gary@mystery-shopper.com are the ways to get this back to me.


We have a mystery in your area and we would like you to participate. Mystery Vagenis® is accepting applications for qualified investigators for solve this mystery. It's fun. I don't know about rewarding, but what the f**k, it's fun.


There is a charge to become a member of my program, but we'll get into that after I've f**ked you over. haha.

ABOUT ME

Mystery Vagenis® came to be one day when after a drunken binge in a combined karaoke bar/sex change clinic, I woke up to find that I had a vagenis: a vagina with a penis attached.

I have no idea how this happened, but I have to say, I can no longer get a date, and I really don't f**king need to, because I can f**k myself.

But I don't get sucked, because it's so repulsive to see. So I'm wondering: are there others like me?

And that is where you come in. I am recruiting investigators for Mystery Vagenis® to help me to learn (a) how this shit happened (b) how wide spread it is and (c) find others like me that I can establish a sexual rapport with.

My story has been kind of* told on ABC NEWS, NBC NEWS, in the L.A.TIMES, on MSNBC and online at Moron.Org and The Daily Kos. I've even been told that Nancy 'Bela' Pelosi and Barney Frank want in on this deal so they can control it in the new hellthscare law.

I am looking to negotiate with organizations -- see what I just did there? -- such as The Sex Gap, Vagmart, Pizza Slut, and Sex Organs Banks amongst many others who might pay for Mystery Vagenis® to attract their kind of business in their establishments and report their experiences.

I'll promise to pay you in some manure for what you find out. Mystery Vagenis® charges fees to their investigators. Training, tips for improvement, and opportunities are provided for a fee to registered investigators.

Mystery Vagenis investigators start by paying their own expenses, for which they are reimbursed in some manure later. Mystery Vagenis® has available for immediate assignment an inspection of the possible surgical facilities of any barlighting karaoke/sex change facility in your area.

You are to investigate secretly and keep good records of what you spend, for later reimbursement in some manure. During this investigation you will report on the location and make several observations as regards how shit goes down there. You will be required to interact with the operations staff. You may conduct the investigation as a single, or as the braver half of a bisexual couple looking to sodomize animals on the side.

The assignment will pay $230.00 in Saddam Hussein Iraqi dinars. Kindly Fill Out the application form below and we will get back to you shortly:


PERSONAL INFORMATION:

First Name.......................................Middle Name......................................

Last Name........................................Street Address ..................................

City, State, Zip Code ...........................Cell Phone Number ...............................

Home Phone Number ...............................

Alternate Email Address..........................Age..............................................

Last Time You Had Sex With A Manatee..............................................

Last Time You Helped Occupy Outhouses Protest Public Defecation Laws............................... AVAILABILITY:Days/Hours Available

Monday .........................................

Tuesday .........................................

Wednesday .......................................

Thursday .......................................

Friday ..........................................

Saturday ........................................

Sunday ..........................................

Hours Available: from _______ to ______


I can't wait to f**king hear from you.


Insincerely,

Gary Tom

It took a couple of days, but danged if I didn't get a curious response from the scam mail originator:


who the f**k r u?


Simple. Direct. Succinct. I reckoned a like reply would be in order:


Who the f**k do you think?


It's been a couple weeks now, and still no reply, so I gather I stumped him. Several efforts to send him hints have gone unanswered, so I guess the mystery for him lives on.

Labels: ,

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Strings 'n Things



A couple years or so back, an acquaintance of mine related one of her music teaching misadventures, with a student she referred to as "having a high IQ and a contrastingly low musical talent, all the while imagining himself adept at the art of violin composition, when he was, in fact, WMD to the ears".

I would assume that meant Weapon of Musical Distortion.

If so, this acquaintance could have easily been referring to me in my youth. Save for the high IQ part.

Years and three concussions later, I kind of recall being the learner of a musical instrument. Introduced to me as the violin, I also knowd it in southern vernacular as a fiddle. Despite living in Iowa, I stubbornly clung to the 'fiddle' as identifier, considering it to sound less sissified, and besides, calling it that drove my music teacher nuts.

This, I was good at.

After I got past the usual childhood urges to use the fiddle to shoot arrows with distinct, discordant TWANGs, or employing the bow in stirring reenactments of Errol Flynn vs Basil Rathbone sword play, I settled down to learn how to make the dog howl, the cat's hair stand on end, and my siblings grit their teeth.

That was the easy part.

Why a fiddle, you might ask? My initial inspiration came from the Three Stooges (pictured); later, from Tommy Smothers, watching him deftly handle his fiddle during the Smothers Brothers TV show. The thing looked so much bigger on TV; in fact, about as big as he was. But at that age, so did mine. Anyway, he was on whom I modelled myself after.

My instructor, of course, forever tried to pervert my inspiration: put the thing on your shoulder, she'd insist. I'd cite Tommy Smothers as my example for otherwise, and she'd just tell me to shut up, hold the fiddle...dammit..the violin properly, and stop calling it a fiddle.

That always hacked her off.

Then, as in the undoing of Puff the Magic Dragon, something started going terribly wrong: I was getting bigger. My fiddle didn't. My back was killing me, having to stoop over further and further to play the thing the way it was meant to be played. It was disconcerting to find that the way my instructor, so pigheadedly insisted I play it, was starting to make some sense.

Gradually, I masterd the art of the fiddle, and lived my single greatest musical moment in 1988, getting to play the distinctive fiddle solos during the more poignant moments for the soundtrack of the movie Beetlejuice. That proved to be my high-fiddle mark, and I gave it up for other pursuits, like tornado chasing and falling out of trees while gathering firewood.

Long after those heady, high-strung days, I've become somewhat more worldly, erudite, culturally barbaric and flatulent. And despite all that, I've come to the conclusion that it's time to tell the unvarnished and rosined truth about my musical acumen:

-- it was really a devastating lack thereof.

-- fact is, much like Tommy Smother's onstage schtick...I lied; it was my sister who played the violin and made the dog howl, cat wince, et al.

-- it was Dickie Smothers who played the fiddle, not Tommy.

-- It wasn't really a fiddle, it was a base fiddle, which tended to explain why Dickie never put the thing under his chin to play it.

-- I didn't really play the background fiddle in the Beetlejuice sequences, though a couple times I swiped my sister's fiddle and made it sound kinda like a frozen cat being trimmed with a chainsaw, sorta.


Truth is, in my elementary school days, I played a trumpet, just like Herb Alpert.

Well okay, so I played a trumpet like Herb Alpert's.

Okay, so it was a trumpet, designed kinda like Herb Alpert's.

Okay, so it would have sounded like a trumpet played by Herb Alpert, if Herb Alpert were playing it.

At least the two did have in common a spit valve; and I was very good at clearing that.

Really. Honest.

Well okay, so I didn't clear the spit valve as professionally as Herb Alpert.

At least I know I was better at one thing than Herb Alpert was with a trumpet: annoying the snarf out of my music teacher. Not only could I clear the spit valve with authority and in something kind of akin to E flat, I told her I could make my arm pit sound like a trumpet.

It sorta did, too, like when I'd noisily clear the spit valve.

Sometimes, I love remembering the past, even through the filter of three concussions. And I can ponder one day looking up my old music teacher, if she's still alive, and hoping that if she is, she lives where she can hear the sound of elk bugling. Because I'm sure it's torture for her.

See, she'll think it's me, noisily clearing my spit valve.

I'm glad I didn't have to put up with me, either.

Labels: